Melanie Rivas, a 22-year-old from Chicago, says her life was radically changed after a personal encounter with Jesus that pulled her back from the brink of suicide. Just nine months earlier, she was homeless, broke, and fleeing what she described as a “very controlling and very toxic” same-sex marriage. “My ex-wife stole all my money and locked me out of all of my accounts. So I had nothing,” Rivas told CBN News.
Rivas said she grew up in a Catholic home but described her early faith as “like a procedure,” lacking any real relationship with Jesus. Without that foundation, she said she became “super impressionable,” entering homosexual relationships, experimenting with drugs, and eventually becoming deeply involved in witchcraft through social media. “I’m sitting there worshiping death. And it’s borderline Satanism,” she said, explaining that she was searching for something to fill what she now sees as a spiritual void.
After losing her home, marriage, and income in a single day, Rivas said she spiraled into depression and planned to take her own life. Sitting in her car with pills in hand, she checked her email and received what she described as a strange message urging her to get a book. With only five dollars left, she went to Walmart and found a New Testament Bible priced at one dollar. “You can’t even get a candy bar for a dollar,” she recalled.
As she began reading the New Testament in her car, Rivas said everything changed. “As soon as I opened it…I genuinely felt the Holy Spirit,” she said. “I felt His love for me… but also His mourning for me, like He has seen me try and live this life alone.” She describes that moment as when her life was “completely transformed.”
Now baptized and active on social media, Rivas says she has fully surrendered her life to Jesus and is committed to sharing the Gospel, particularly with Gen Z. “I just proclaim Jesus everywhere I go,” she said, adding that her online following has grown rapidly. Rivas says her story is meant to show “how merciful and how abundant our Father is,” and she continues to tell it in hopes others will find what she believes drugs, sex, and alternative spirituality never provided: true peace in Jesus Christ.
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